Prior art teaches how to make shaped dry rice products such a dried rice chips, dry rice cakes, and dry puffed crisp rice particles. These shaped dry rice products are all made with finely milled rice flour and have moisture contents of at least 10%. The prior art teaches how to make rice Krispies bars and granola which are comprised of puffed rice grains and/or low density pieces of puffed crisp rice pieces that are joined to each other with a syrup binder.
A prior art process for making rice fries from rice flour and water was developed by the USDA-ARS in New Orleans, La. and published in the Journal of Food Service volume 66, No. 4, page 610. The USDA teaches a process for extruding rice flour together with a comparatively small amount of water through a high shear, fast rotating screw-type extruder to form rice fries strands which are then fat-fried. According to this referred article, the USDA process is able to make rice strands with less than 40% moisture which when fat-fried produced finished products i.e. par-fried rice fries having 20-30% moisture. The fries have to be cooked like regular French fries. Typically they are fried in oil at a factory site and shipped frozen to consumers who would re-heat them in a microwave or in a conventional oven. This process substantially increases the cost of manufacturing and thus limits the market potential of such a product.
In the 1980s researchers at a USDA-ARS laboratory in Berkeley, Calif. developed a frozen rice product that was covered with another layer of ground potato flakes and deep fried. This product was made using rice kernels, not rice flour.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,656,966 teaches a process for making a ready-to-eat food chips from cereal grains such as wheat or rye by cooking a mixture of whole wheat or whole rye that has been cut into pieces. Water and other grains, including rice or other grains are added and the combined grains and water are mixed into dough. Individual pieces of dough are formed and then are deep fried in oil. During the deep frying process the dough expands, puffing the pieces of dough as they cook.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,711,295 teaches a process for making shaped rice products that have a “homogenous consistency” interior texture like French fried potatoes.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,623,546 teaches a process for making rice products comprising the steps of:                a) Extrusion cooking a moist mix of ingredients comprising at least 50% uncooked rice flour on a dry weight basis in a screw-type extruder. The screw-type extruder includes an elongated barrel having a feed end, a discharge end, and a passage way. A single elongated rotatable screw is snugly mounted within the passage way and is typically coated with an anti-stick coating;        b) Expressing the mix from the extruder through a die under expanding conditions;        c) Cutting the expressed mix into discrete pieces;        d) Drying the cut pieces; and        e) Toasting the dried pieces.        
Crisped rice is a product frequently used in the manufacture of crisp candy bars, cookies, granola bars and other snacks and confections in addition to its well-known use as a breakfast food. A typical crisp rice process is an oven-fluffy (puffing) process which begins with whole kernels of rice. The rice kernels are first cooked in a retort for several hours together with sugar, salt, and malt. The cooked kernels are then dried to a moisture content of 25% to 30%, tempered for about 15 hours to equilibrate moisture and dried again to a moisture content of 18 to 20%. The dried kernels are then radiantly heated to plasticize the outside layers of the kernel, “bumped” O on widely spaced flaking rolls, and a tempered for 24 hours. The bumped kernels are then finally puffed and toasted in a toasting oven for 30 to 40 seconds. Such an oven puffing rice crisp process is expensive as it has the disadvantage of containing many steps of moderate complexity.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,734,289 teaches a process for food material for puffing compressed pre-gelatinized cereal grains, 0.2 to 11% by weight of ethyl alcohol, 0.25 to 16% by weight of fat and/or oil, with a water content of 5 to 45% by weight. The food material is used as a breakfast food or snack as well as making rice crackers.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,871,793 teaches a process for the preparation of puffed cereal cakes. The process comprises molding puffed or un-puffed cereal grains under pressure with the application of ultrasound. The ultrasound assists bonding of the cereal grains to form a solid cake. The ultrasound reduces failing of the mold and increases processing speed. In one embodiment pre-puffed cereal grains that are coated with a binder agent and ultrasound is used to bond the grains together at a low temperature. The ultrasound enables temperature sensitive foodstuffs to be bonded into puffed cereal cakes quickly without damaging the sensitive foodstuffs. High temperatures are associated with the process, however. Limitations of the process include costly molds and the potential for carbon deposits forming on the molds. Molds used in this process must be able to withstand high pressures and temperatures, and they must expand during the puffing process, such molds are costly. The high temperatures also cause carbon deposits to build up on the molds.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,189,424 describes a process for making rice-based snack chips made from dough that contains at least two different forms of rice mixed with water. Rice kernels, long-grain pre-gelatinized rice flour, medium-grain course rice flour that are first bumped then partially dehydrated and then fried.
The related art reviewed above are examples of processes for making puffed rice foodstuffs or snacks using rice kernels, rice flour, milled rice flour, compressed pre-gelatinized cereal grains or rice grains, or whole cereal grains or rice grains and not milled rice or white rice.
Milled rice or white rice are predominantly comprised of the food part of the rice kernel known as rice endosperm. Rice kernels include an outer husk and other inner parts. The outer husk includes parts known as the lemma, palea, and rachilla. The inner parts of the rice kernel are the endosperm and the embryo. What is commonly referred to as brown rice includes both the endosperm and the embryo, where white rice includes the endosperm and not the embryo. The endosperm is the white nutritive tissue of the rice seed that is absorbed by the embryo during growth of the embryo into a plant. The embryo is also referred to as the germ.